Blog updates
I want to apologize for not having blog updates the last few weeks. As my wedding get near things start to get hectic and I have less and less time to sit down and work and so by not doing blog post I saved those precious hours, however things seemed to have calmed down a bit and so I plan to continue with blog updates every week like before. There is much to talk about.

Fundraiser lives on!
The fundraiser is alive and kicking. The last few weeks I made it a point to add new ways for you to donate and the fundraiser has gained dramatically from this. If you haven't heard about the fundraiser basically we are asking you guys to help us keep making PTD2 and Cosmoids while giving out great prizes. Some of the prizes include access to the Cosmoids Early Alpha, Shiny Rayquaza and Cosmoids Starters for your PTD2 account. Instead of going over every detail here on the blog we have made a page exclusively for the funding. You can find it here. Check it out, if you feel like we deserve to stay alive making games then give us a little help.

Phase 3 of the Fundraiser
Today we start Phase 3 of the fundraiser. What does it mean? NEW PRIZES! For funding $10 or more you will receive in the near future your choice of one of the 3 starters from Cosmoids (you can check them out in the Early Alpha). You will get to pick your favorite and they will stats and move set similar to other starters in pokemon. They won't however evolve right away since we don't have the graphics done for the evolutions. You will also receive 2 of the one that you choose so that you can trade it with somebody. Lastly if you are wondering they will not be able to breed with each other or with any other pokemon.

Cosmoids Early Alpha Released
I'm super excited to announce that for those who funded us any amount now have access to the Cosmoids Early Alpha. If you don't have access and would like to check it out it is very simple. Go to the Pokemon Center's Funding Rewards page and watch a video ad to fund a few cents to us and get access.
Okay so now that you checked it out I wanted to talk about a couple of things that you might have noticed. First of a lot of the graphics are not final and some are close to final. Mostly everything is not final except for the creature units. Those are pretty close to the final graphic besides a few tweaks on size and some minor details. Another huge thing is that there is a lot missing. The UI which is always important is not set up yet.

So you might ask what is the point then? Well there are plenty of points. What I want you to check out is that you can put units in any spot on the map, units have different ranges depending on the attack they are doing. Also unit's attack speed will be based around the base speed of the creature. In PTD I always wanted to do that so that electric pokemon would attack very fast and slow pokemon like slowpoke etc would have a long time between attacks. The problem with pokemon is that attack stats are not balanced around speed since speed in pokemon only means who gets to go first. For cosmoids I do want the base speed to affect attack speed and so we will be balancing around that. In the alpha you can see that the chameleon has a high attack speed but doesn't inflict as much damage. While the koala has a lower attack speed but does more damage per hit. All the numbers still need to be tweaked so the balance is not there yet but it should show a little of what I want to accomplish for this game which is...

Cosmoid Creatures should feel different from one another
I think long and hard about the games that I'm making. On one hand I have PTD a game that I have already established so I don't want to add too much or remove things. Then on the other hand I have Cosmoids which is something new. I don't have anything that tells me how the stats should work or what levels and creatures I need to have. This is both a curse and a blessing. Mostly a blessing in my eyes. So I started to think about what Cosmoids is about and in the same thought what is PTD about. Is the whole point of the game to just capture all your favorite creatures? Do you just set a unit down and watch it all unfold? I thought a lot about it and came to some conclusions, but most importantly I came to the conclusions as to what I wanted the game to be about. I want the game to be about you discovering new creatures, trying them out in battle and picking the ones that suit your playstyle and taste and using them to beat the challenges that I lay in front of you. Using the combination of attack speed, attack ranges, defense, hp and attack stats to create very unique creatures that all play a little differently. I hope that the alpha can give you a little sense of how I want to make each creature feel a little different.

Pokemon Tower Defense 2 updates!
Many of you know that I've always wanted to make a Pokemon MMO but obviously I would need the copyright to make it happen. Cosmoids is a way to creature my own original creatures so that I can still make a creature MMO in my lifetime. Cosmoids is very important to the future of Sam & Dan Games cause it make it our first truly original game that we distribute to any place we want. Steam, Android, Appstore etc. So in many ways Cosmoids is going to get a lot of my attention from here on out. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to be working on PTD2. I will continue to do updates for PTD2 but with a slight change in focus.
My focus now is more on getting more attacks and more creatures into the game each week. You might have noticed I'm doing giveaways the last few weeks starting with Luvdisc and then Litwick. These particular giveaways are a sort of experiment. I'm curious to see if eventually these 2 will be common among users as more and more are breed. Luvdisc will take longer in my opinion because right now it can only breed with itself. Another way I'm adding more pokemon is by starting to allow PTD1 transfers over to PTD2. Each week I want to add at least 3 new families that will be able to transfer. Also I want to reach the mighty level 100 soft cap so that most of the attacks are added in the game and will make transferring from PTD1 and adding new creatures faster as more attacks are added. Also this week I'm adding the Dusk Stone and the Reaper's Cloth so that you can evolve your recently new Ghost Pokemon. The story mode is still very important to me and even 1v1 is important. But these take a lot of time to create, this week I won't be doing a story mode level but next week I will.

So let's look at what I will be working on this week.

Weekly Progess

PTD2 Alpha v1.36.1 Released!

Mystery Gift (100%)

PTD2 Alpha v1.36.1 Released!

Testing! (100%) - Super Important to test out things before I hand it over to you guys.

Fundraiser Continues!
The fundraiser continues on this week, the first 1% took a loooong time but the second % took only 3 days, maybe things are picking up, only 98 more to go! Let's look at more information for the fundraiser, if you already read it then feel free to skip ahead since I didn't add anything new this week. This is mainly for those who haven't read anything on it and to remind you that we are still doing this. :)

Dan and I love making games and we want to continue to make them. If you are reading this then I suspect you have enjoyed PTD and PTD2 quite a bit. Right now Dan has another full time job since we don't make enough to support him. I work full time on the games, relying heavily on ad revenue from the trading center/blog and a part of the SnD coin sales. While those sources provide some help they are far from steady. If ads and sales go down it could potentially lead to me having to stop making games or spend considerably less time working on them. Meaning less updates for you guys. We really don't want it to get to that point so we decided to humble ourselves and ask you, the fans, for help.

The 50k amount might seem like a lot but in reality it is the bare minimum we need to be able to keep working on games for the rest of this year.

Do I get anything for funding?

Yes! Absolutely! We always want to reward our fans when they give to us. Like I mentioned before on a previous blog we will have many prizes for those that donate to us. Some of the prizes include:

Cosmoids Creatures for your PTD2 account

Shiny Legendary Pokemon only available to people who help us fund

Special Exclusive Creature for Cosmoids

Special Titles for your Trading Account

Access to the early Alpha version of Cosmoids

The current announced prizes are the following:

Donate any amount - Access to the Early Alpha Version of Cosmoids with Sam's Graphics

Just for donating you will get a code that will let you play Cosmoids and give feedback on the game before anybody else. Note: The Early Alpha Version is not released yet.

You will get 2 Shiny Rayquaza for your ptd2 account. Note: These will be given out next week.

What is are the Phases?
Since we are constantly working on updates for you guys we have to take everything we do little by little. So the funding will have different phases.

Each phase will come when new prizes are announced. Regardless of when you donate if you have donated enough to qualify for a prize you will receive it once the prize is available.

Sounds good! I want to support you guys, how do I do it?
Thank you! To support us just click on the donate amount below and enter the amount you wish to donate. We will send you the activation code for your donation in an email.

Is there a way to donate without needing a credit credit card?
Yes! You can now watch a short video to donate a few cents and get access to the rewards. You can also complete free offers and surveys to donate. Go to the Pokemon Center's Funding Rewards page to watch the video or complete the offers.

Questions?
If you have any questions at all, email me at support@sndgames.com

Common Questions:

What if my paypal email is different from my PTD2 email? How will I get the prizes to my PTD2 account?

Easy! When you make a donation we will reply with a code to your paypal email. On your PTD2 email you can use the code in the near future to activate your prizes. So the paypal email does NOT need to match your ptd email since you will just need the code itself.

It has been more than 24 hours since my donation but I haven't received any emails?

First check your Junk Folder for any emails from us. Second if you have nothing on your Junk Folder or you accidentally deleted it then email us at sam@sndgames.com with your paypal email and we will get you your code.

Please allow us up to 24 Hours to process your donation. Cosmoids Early Alpha will begin next week. Hold on to your codes until then. If you haven't received your code and it has been more than 24 hours then check your Junk Folder for the email. Also add orders@sndgames.com to your contacts so that it won't enter your junk folder.

Friendship and Happiness!
One of the most requested things to add to the game is a way to evolve pokemon that need a high friendship value to evolve. This week I hope to bring that into the game.The way I will implement it is that you can buy a friendship item in the pokemon center using snd coins or daily coins to increase their happiness. Once their happiness is high enough you can evolve that pokemon without having to level up!

Evolution Stones
Just like happiness it's time to add in Evolution Stones. These will also be acquired using daily coins or snd coins.

New Daily Coin Activity
Because we are adding new items to buy with daily coins we will be adding at least one new daily coin activity that you can do to earn your daily coins. I don't have the exact details of it figured out yet but I will talk about it more as the week progresses.

An Unown Problem and a Hidden Power Solution
So Story wise on PTD2 the next spot is the Ruins of Alph which feature the mysterious Unown pokemon. In the original games you would have an Unown for every letter in the alphabet and for ! and ?. The way PTD2 is coded does not support having these different forms so I run into the problem of how I'm going to do it. Unown also learn only one attack called Hidden Power. This move changes depending on the Individual Values of your Pokemon. IV is something that I don't have in PTD2 either. So here I am with two things that don't really fit what I have here. One solution is to add these features into the game but that will take a long time and it's not something I had planned to do. So instead I came up with my own solution. Many might not like it but it is how it's going to be.

So basically the solution is that your Unown will not have a specific form. His form will be randomize every time you play the game. So when you log in the Unown will pick a random letter and become that form while you are playing. Next time you log in it will again randomly pick which form. The same thing will happen with the move Hidden Power. It will change it's type and attack power randomly when you start a battle. So every battle you could get a different type and power but once the battle is going it will stay the same.

Mystery Gift Shelmet
Last week you guys choose Karrablast as your Bug Mystery Gift but as many of you know and mentioned you need Shelmet to make Karrablast evolve. So this week we will get Shelmet and evolutions will be possible! All rejoice!

Funder's prize Shiny Rayquaza
So Rayquaza won the poll and this week I will work on giving those out at the end of the week. Stay tuned!

Cosmoids Evolution
Cosmoids is still under development, I think when I say something like that a lot of you might imagine me and our artist putting many hours into it but the reality is that there aren't enough hours in the day to really give each project a lot of time. The development that is happening for Cosmoids are different conversations about how the game should play. What changes do we want to make from the PTD formula? How should we present changing moves during a battle? Talking to artist about needing a specific designs, getting updates about their progress. The actual work going on is me making some graphics and starting to put together the basic programming for the game that will be the foundation for the project. There is so much to do but so little time, especially when I'm working on PTD2.

Other ways to donateUPDATE: You can now donate by watching a short video ad or completing free offers and surveys. You get access to the Cosmoids Alpha once that is released and you can eventually accumulate enough to earn other rewards.Go the the Pokemon Center's Funding Rewards page to watch them or complete the offers.

Welcome to the Sam & Dan Games Developer Blog! This is a really late blog post this week. Like every week I was very busy but I did get some things done which is good. First of all let's talk about how great you guys are.

FundraiserThe fundraiser is still ongoing and will be around for a while. The good thing about doing this on the blog instead of a site like Kickstarter or Indiegogo is that we don't have a strict deadline. That is not to say that we won't bring our funding to Kickstarter at some point, just right now isn't the right time for us. The funding has been picking up, mainly due to the Shiny Legendary prize that I recently indirectly announced with the poll above. We passed the 1% point which I'm happy about, on to the next percentage :) With the new prize announced this also means we are in phase 2 of the funding. Each new prize will mean a new phase. The phases just means that there are new prizes yet to be announced. So let's look at some info!

Other ways to donateMany of you have mentioned that you don't own credit cards or that you don't have money to donate but would still like to help out and get some prizes. Well I stumbled about a potential way to make this happen. Pretty soon I will be able to offer a way that you can watch an advertisement video and in return I get tiny amount of money (usually 1 cent or less) that I will count as a donation from you. Granted to reach $5 or more it will take a lot of video watching and time but at least you will be able to get access to the early alpha and help us get closer to our funding goals. I will also use this as a way to get daily coins and possible other items for the games such as berries or tms. It's a way that you can help us keep going while only spending a few minutes of your time.Still working on Cosmoids

I honestly barely got any work done on cosmoids last week. The most I've been able to do is make some story scenes for the beginning of the game. Game development is not easy, it has a lot to do with momentum. You want to get the ball rolling on a project and then it becomes much easier to keep going on it. On the other hand I don't want to rush this project just to meet my own deadlines. Deadlines are important to help push a project but if you have to sacrifice the quality for it then it might not be worth sticking to those deadlines. There was a saying "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is forever bad."

Pokemon Tower Defense 2

This week for PTD2 we have the soft cap level raised to 20. Incase you don't know the soft level cap is the level in which pokemon will stop learning new moves. For the pokemon that we have in the game so far including Karrablast it took 27 new moves to reach this level cap. I did a giant list and to go from 20 to 100 it would be 172 new moves. It would take a long time for the soft cap to reach 100 and that would also mean that there would be no new levels to play. With developing PTD2 the way I am and with you guys being able to play the game at this point I can't just focus on one area in the game and push that all the way through. For example if I continued the story levels but didn't add to the soft cap we wouldn't have great moves to pick from. If I just added 1v1 levels then you would never be able to catch any new pokemon. It is a tricky balance.

Like Cosmoids I didn't get to look at any of the bug fixes this week. They are still in my radar but I'm not sure exactly when I will be able to take care of them.